1. Field
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of computer networking; and more specifically, to forwarding data traffic when the control plane is reset.
2. Background
Highly-available network switches are used to enable mission critical services to customers because these switches are designed to withstand faults or crashes in components of the network switch. A typical highly-available network switch comprises multiple line cards for data traffic processing and multiple control cards to control the overall running of the network switch. Although the network switch typically needs one control card for the operation of the network switch, a second redundant card is usually employed as a hot-standby. In this scenario, if the control card fails, crashes or otherwise resets, the controlling operation of the network switch fails over to the second standby card. The standby card maintains a state of the initial control card, thus allowing the failover of the control to happen quickly with minimal or no loss of data traffic processing. However, if both control cards fail, or there is one only control card and that fails, the network switch typically resets the entire switch resulting in a significant interruption of data traffic processing.